Have Mercy
by ShinytheUnicorn
Summary: All she wanted to do was go home and sleep off her cold. Now she is in a strange jungle where aliens want to kill her and possibly eat her. That'll teach her for leaving work early.
1. Chapter 1

_I do not own any part of the Predator Franchise the only thing I can claim is my character Mercy. Which I have to say will probably be one of the few times I outright name an O.C. at their introduction; not naming them right off the bat isn't intentional but it is the way it usually turns out for me. This character wasn't even supposed to be named, Mercy was going to be the name for a different character in another thing that I am working on. Also some of you may have noticed that this was posted a few days ago then taken down that was due to technical difficulties and now I am re-posting it._

-x-

It started with the feeling of nothingness-as if the mind had forgotten about its body. Though that was understandable as at that moment the mind itself was slow, sluggish, and barely aware of itself. As the mind did the slow crawl to consciousness the nothingness turned to weightlessness. Like it was floating.

"Must have taken too much cough medication," came the dull though. Vague awareness and recollection returned: having a cold, leaving work early to go home, tea and medication, falling asleep on the couch during a Netflix marathon. The body was still silent though, hardly registering any sensation.

The first sense to come back was her hearing. Roaring. That was all she could hear-a roar so intense she thought her eardrums would burst. She could feel the pressure on her ears and struggled to understand; questioning why she could feel wind rushing over her face and through her hair. Opening her eyes- she would realize was a terrible mistake- managed to snap her body back to life; it could feel everything now. She didn't have her eyes open for long before screwing them back shut-unable to believe what she had seen. That and the wind made them sting and tear up.

Opening her eyes again, it confirmed what she didn't want to believe: She could see the ground and it was getting closer. She was falling from the sky and plummeting towards her own death. She was too shocked to scream. She wanted to scream, though, and panic. She wanted to flail and be out of this situation-one she had no idea how she got in in the first place. She wanted all this to be a dream and wake up still on her couch.

"Come on, Mercy, think of something to do! Do Something!" Except she didn't know what to do. Now that she could feel her body again she knew she was already spread eagle; which was about the only thing she knew to do when falling. It was the only thing she could do and she was already doing it. With a clear mind she understood two things: 1) She was falling 2) she was going to die.

"At least I'm going to get a good view," She thought morbidly. She looked down at the jungle spread out below her with detachment; she usually thought landscape Ariel views were beautiful. She would have appreciated it more but as the canopy of trees rushed to greet her it was hard to feeling anything but numb. She closed her eyes in acceptance.

Then the beeping started.

"Can't even die in peace," she mumbled inwardly. It was a shrill beeping and upon a quick investigation she found that it was coming from an until-then-unnoticed-harness. It came with an annoying, blinking red light. She couldn't understand why it was there or what its function was.

Now, though, she could see the details of the trees very clearly and the scream she couldn't muster before tore its way out of her throat. Her panicked screech was abruptly cut off, however, when the harness released its parachute; jerking her whole body and forcing the air out of her lungs. Her vision blurred with tears from the pain and then she was crashing through the trees. She slammed onto the ground and her world went dark once again.


	2. Chapter 2

_UGH, so sorry that I am late with this. I should have two days off from work and I was going to use them to type up and edit this chapter but then my coworker got sick and I had to cover. Also I got my hair done. That may not seem like something that would take up much time but when you go from blue and peach to grey, blue, purple, and neon-green it takes about six hours. Anyways, here it is. I had issues with this chapter cause I know where I want this story to go and I just want it to be there but instead I am here doing setup. Oh well it will pick up soon._

-x-

Pain, that was the only thing she could feel. It was the only thing she was aware of when she first regained consciousness. It encompassed her entire body and pervaded her mind when she wasn't fading in and out of consciousness. She had no idea how long she had been there, how long she had initially been unconscious, or how many times she had faded in and out but after achieving full consciousness she immediately wished she could slip back down into the painless darkness. Though, she did notice that it was dark around her regardless so she took that as a sign of how much time had passed as she remembered it being quite bright during her fall.

 _"At least you know you are still alive_ ," was the first true coherent thought to break through the pain. She had no idea how to check herself for broken bones other than the, probably inaccurate, ways she had seen on TV and in the movies and a barely remembered list from a Wikihow hole she had fallen into one time while she was high. It seemed useless but going through the list was the only thing she could do.

1) What happened directly before the pain?

 _"I fell from the sky. There may have been a parachute."_

2) Should additional services be called?

 _"In all likelihood, yes."_

That was it; that was all she could remember of the individual points on the list but seeing as she knew the rest o involved calling emergency services that was fine. It had been enough to calm down some and allow other thought of a more physical assessment.

Taking a breath , she cleared her mind as best as she could and began to focus on the individual parts of her body; starting at her feet and working her way up. Carefully, she moved and rotated her limbs as she went through really she could only do the one side because she was laying on the ground in the fetal position... There was no additional pain-it was too dark to see if there was any swelling- so she decided to move into a new position. Slowly she began to unfurl from the fetal position- which she could only assume in for a while. She straightened and stretched both legs before flipping to her back and doing the same for her arms. Each time she stretched she felt her pain lessen.

 _"So… I stayed in one position for too long, cramped up, and that's what got to me? Lame."_

In reality it was probably a combination of the landing and the cramping.

Now that she was on her back she could see why it was so dark; she was under the parachute. She felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment as she should have known before. At the very least she should have felt the fabric- or registered that she felt other fabric- as it was draped over her.

 _"It's okay, you were preoccupied with being in pain and unconscious. After all, you did fall from the sky, cut yourself some slack,"_ She consoled herself.

"That's right! I did fall from the sky," she burst out loud startling herself with the sudden noise. She clamped her mouth shut; worrying that something or someone had heard her and a pit formed in her stomach. Somehow she had been strapped into a parachute, dropped into a jungle, in an unknown area of the world, by unknown persons, for unknown reasons, and by unknown means-though presumably there was a plane involved.

Not knowing where she was and not yet ready to leave the comfort of the parachute Mercy lay there, racking her brain for theories into her predicament. She knew staying there for too long could actually put her in danger as she didn't know what type of predators were in this part of the jungle. They could have been attracted to the area by the sound of her crashing or the scent of new meat; but she didn't want to leave her spot just yet just in case a rescue team showed up somehow or something.

Eventually though, she ran out of theories to think about and her stomach was almost painfully empty; that, along with her parched throat spurred her into action. More or less.

She knew she wouldn't be able to actually eat yet-she didn't know how to hunt it and she wasn't familiar enough with the vegetation to forage- but the least that she could do is find some water. With every book or show she watched where a person ended up stranded or left out in the wilderness they stressed finding water.

 _"Then again_ ," she thought, " _I have no way to purify the water when I do find it."_

"The least I can do is find the water," she responded out loud to her own thought. "Knowing where it is is just as important as being able to drink it."

Slowly she rolled onto her stomach and crawled to the lip of other parachute to scan her immediate surroundings. She gently it so she could see out- she knew she was being overly cautious but considering her current situation she believed it was warranted. She took her time as she observed the area around her and nothing seemed too obvious in its ability to hurt her.

 _"Yeah but are you going to do this for every side?"_

Accepting that no, she wasn't so cautious that she would waste time doing this for every direction she flung the parachute off herself and stood up as quickly as she could; hoping the suddenness of her movements would scare off whatever animals were lurking.

This is where she ran into her first –immediate- problem. She didn't know how to take the parachute off. She may not know much about her situation but she did know that she couldn't run around the jungle with a parachute trailing behind her. It would slow her down and get caught in things. After fiddling around with the harness for a while she gave up and decided to just roll it up.

"Might need to use it later anyways."

Being careful to stretch- no need to pull something- Mercy went to work rolling up the parachute. Which was about as easy as folding a fitted sheet. She decided that this parachute was, in fact, the father of all fitted sheets. She took her time- it was slow going anyways- and by the end of it she was mildly winded but hadn't broken into a sweat; helping her conserve what water she had left in her body and conserve energy. She tucked the bundle under her arm and marched off. She noticed that the area wasn't entirely flat and about ten feet in the direction opposite of where she had first peeked out from cover was a slope. If there was one thing that she could remember from her Geology intro class it was that water always tries to follow gravity and can thus probably be found downhill. Which was fine by her as she would rather stumble down a hill than struggle to climb up one

While rolling up the parachute she had an argument with herself as to whether she should try to come back to this location but she doubted she would be able to find it again once she left it. It would probably be best to wait near the water for rescue. Though if she had known what awaited her-if she knew what her future entailed and what watched her from the tree branches- she never would have crawled out from under her parachute.


End file.
